When you fill up your Phosban Reactor...

ro/di

ro/di

do you think that i can use a ro/di filter canaster with two fittings on the end a feed it with a low gph pump and fill it with Phos because they are $10 bucks at homedepot and i would take a carbon filter take the carbon out and replace it with Phos remover just an idea??
 
melev, DUH! Do the math!!! Reread your earlier post. You are correct, if anything I'm low on phosban. Getting tired sorry for the slow reaction.

I have never thought I was an intelligent person, but I never thought I was dumb either, that is until I got into this hobby. Boy do I feel DUMB right now! :D
 
Micki, for almost a year I used only one reactor on my tank and couldn't understand why it wasn't doing the job. I had to do a little math myself. By using less than you need, you may not win the battle but you definitely won't overdose your tank. And bringing it down from .25 is nothing compared to what I was dealing with in my reef.

Since changing out the sump, replacing the skimmer, improving the refugium and running dual reactors plus a third one for carbon, everything is improving nicely. Plus my fish load has been reduced by 2/3 from what it was 12 months ago.

I just need my corals to grow. ;)
 
Thanks melev, I don'at feel quite as bad. ;) I still have a my friends phosban reactor. (I'm using the one I just bought). I wonder how long it would take to be rid of the phosphates if I ran both of them? Or can I just add even more phosban to the reactor? There is pleanty of room left.
 
Marc I'm one of those guys your talking about. I will be using a few teaspoons:( I just want to go slow at first:)

Is 4-5 gallons enough to make this stuff run clear? Also what are these Fines you talk about Marc? Pieces that the sponge miss?

If I wasn't doing a WT anytime soon can I just use RO/DI water minus the salt?
 
Micki, there is a chance you could use one of those whole house filters like you asked earlier to use more quantity, but I don't think I would do that. The reason I don't run mine full to the top to bring down PO4 is because I don't want to overdose the tank and I don't want it to clog up and become solid. So using 1", 1.5", or 2" per reactor seems to work just fine. Matter of fact, I'm going to test PO4 in my tank in a few minutes to see what it reads tonight.

Eric, I've used 4-5g of RO/DI water to rinse it out. The reason I used RO/DI instead of tap was due to the idea that any phosphate in the tap water might consume some of the new media. I want all of it to be used in my tank, and not waste it on anything else. The fines are the tiny specs that become waterborne. Depending on what product you'll use, the water will become muddy or cloudy. With Pura Phoslock and Silphos, the water turns blood red. RowaPhos is darker, and Phosban is brownish. You just run water through it slowly to avoid disturbing it too greatly, and stop when the media is visible and the rest of the reactor looks clear.

The only reason I prefer using it in the tank and wasting some tank water is because no air gets in the unit when I'm done purging the unit. When you run it in the sink or in a bucket, once done air gets into the reactor. Then you hook it up to your tank, and start the pump. Water pushes the air down into the reactor, and then burps through the media which sometimes releases more fines. That is a small drawback. It is believed that the fines are detrimental to your system, because it will float through the tank and possibly land on the polyps of your corals.

I've also had the output of the reactor pour into a filter sock to help trap the fines, but I could see dark smoke come right through the sock into the return section. And from there the water goes right back up to the tank.
 
Marc, here is where 1 container fills my reactor. Obviously much more than an inch or so...

53f9d65a.jpg
 
And because you don't have very high PO4, odds are it will do the job adequately, but as soon as you get a reading coming out of the reactor, it must be completely spent and needs to be replaced.

I checked the PO4 last night and it was 1.0 - I was really upset. So I tested it again, and it was .1ppm. I think the first test was inaccurate, possibly because I didn't get 6 true drops of Part 1.
 
No, and I didn't bother testing that effluent last night. That test was 1.0 in the first test which I didn't believe, but was .1 in the secondary test. This was tank water being tested, not effluent.
 
When I test the PO4 of my tank with a salifert kit I always get a reading of 0. Something is obviously using the phosphate before the test can get it since it's a different type of phosphate that salifert tests for.

How would you determine the life cycle of the media in my case?
 
I have no idea. If you get a zero reading out of the reactor all the time you lucky dog, the only other indicator would be if it clumped up and water could no longer pass through it.
 
I haven't gotten the reactor yet, I figured since my regular salt water on a typical test shows 0, which hopefully it would since it is only checking orthophosphates then the water coming out of the reactor would be 0.

The reactor was ordered today though as I do have a bit of algae in the tank, nothing major though.
 
My salifert test also has never shown any reading besides 0. I have a few spots of algae that has seemed to subside since adding chaeto and a bigger skimmer. I still can't seem to get the kind of growth from my stony corals before I added more fish. Any one else experience increased growth since adding a phosban reactor? Thinking of purchasing one!
 
Oh my yes!!! Much better growth and colors. Nearly all my corals branches have developed nice growth tips. Several patches of stubborn algae are turning brown. My saliferts had always read 0. Now I know what was really going on.

Been running the reactor since late Oct. No STN or RTN issues. I started REALLY slow.
 
My salifert test showed PO4 of 3+ for months until I got a reactor. It has slowly gone down. It's finally at 1. I felt it was accurate testing.
 
Does the brand of phosphste remover matter. I mean between Phosban, rowaphos and all the other no name brand.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6228136#post6228136 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by melev
They grow in pristine water that is PO4-free.

Not "free", but trace amounts.

PO4 is an important nutrient and corals require to have at least some for their long term well being.

PO4 is required in DNA production, and other cell activities.

A good ââ"šÂ¬Ã…"œtargetââ"šÂ¬Ã‚ is 0.02-0.04 (Hanna)

JMO.
 
Back
Top